Furniture tool for vacuum cleaners



y 6, 1957 N. HAGEAL 2,799,040

FURNITURE TOOL FOR VACUUM CLEANERS Filed Au 19, 1955 INVENTOR. EALHACEAL 20 F I BY 1 I 1 I A TORNEY United States Patent FURNITURE TOOLFOR VACUUM CLEANERS Neal Hageal, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Application August 19, 1953, Serial No. 375,170

1 Claim. (Cl. 15-418) This invention relates to a household cleaningappliance and, in particular to a tool adapted to be attached to the endof the suction hose of a vacuum cleaner for cleaning upholsteredfurniture.

Furniture tools heretofore available have usually comprised a head witha Wide inlet or mouth and a throat communicating therewith forattachment to the suction hose. Such tools have also been provided withbrush bristles to improve their cleaning action. The effect thereof,however, is small unless the bristles are so stiff as to be likely todamage upholstery fabrics.

I have invented an improved furniture tool capable of exerting a greatlyenhanced cleaning action without the presence of bristles. In apreferred embodiment, my tool comprises a substantially oval hollow headwith a wide mouth and a throat like conventional tools, but is furtherprovided with a perforated distributor plate or screen overlying themouth and adapted to make sliding contact with the fabric of upholsteredfurniture. The plate has inclined chutes at the ends for guiding airfrom the end portions of the mouth toward the central throat, therebyspreading the effective suction over the entire width of the mouth. Thedistributor plate may be made integral with the tool or may be separatedtherefrom and removably inserted therein. The latter form is the oneselected for the complete explanation to follow.

A full understanding of the invention may be obtained from the detaileddescription given herebelow which refers to the accompanying drawingsfor illustration of the preferred embodiment.

In the drawings,

Fig. 1 is a rear elevation of my improved tool;

Fig. 2 is a side elevation thereof;

Fig. 3 is a bottom plan view;

Fig. 4 is a section taken along the plane of line IV-IV of Fig. 1;

Fig. 5 is a transverse section taken along the plane of line V-V of Fig.2; and

Figs. 6, 7 and 8 are plan, elevation and bottom plan views,respectively, of the distributor plate.

Referring now in detail to the drawings, my improved tool comprises ahead 10, of flexible, readily yieldable material, made up of a widemouth 11 merging into and communicating with a tubular throat 12. Theend of the throat is adapted to make connection with the end of avacuum-cleaner suction hose by any convenient form of detachable joint,the details of which are known and therefore need not be included here.The head may be of any suitable material but molded rubber has obviousadvantages. The mouth is hollow as shown and includes a pair of spacedwebs 13, one on each side of the throat, joining the front and rearwalls of the mouth intermediate its ends. A narrow groove 14 formed onthe interior of the mouth adjacent its extreme edge extends continuouslytherearound.

A distributor plate or screen 15 overlies the mouth opening. The platehas a peripheral shoulder 16 upstanding thereon provided with outwardlyextending flanges 17 along the sides only of the plate adapted to seatin groove 14 when the plate is fitted in the mouth opening as shown inFigs. 1 through 5. The plate is grooved longitudinally on its outer orlower surface as shown at 18, and spaced portions of the grooves are outthrough the plate, forming slots 19. The bottom surface of the plate isroughened as by transverse corrugations 20 spaced along the lengththereof.

An inclined chute 21 extends inwardly and upwardly from each end of theshoulder 16, terminating adjacent the webs 13. The chutes provide asmooth flow of air from the end portions of the mouth 11 to the throat12 and, together with the slots 19, effect a uniform distribution of thesuction force over the mouth area in contrast to the concentrationthereof in the immediate neighborhood of the throat which occurs in theconventional tool. The corrugations 20 agitate the upholstery fabricsufficiently to dislodge dust therefrom without the possibility of anydamage or excessive wear. The plate may be easily inserted in the mouthof the tool by stretching the edge of the latter slightly. While theplate may be permanently incorporated in the tool, there are advantagesin making it separable, such as the ease of replacement when worn orbroken.

The overall effect of the distributor plate is to increase materiallythe cleaning efficiency of the tool. This improvement probably resultsfrom the greater velocity of the air drawn into the mouth, by reason ofthe restricted inlet area afforded by slots 19 as compared to the totalarea of the mouth without the plate. In any event, my improved tool isseveral times as effective in cleaning furniture as the conventionaltool even when provided with bristles.

While I have described herein but a single preferred embodiment of theinvention, I intend to cover as well such changes in the details thereofas are encompassed by the terms of the appended claim.

I claim:

A tool for a suction-cleaning hose comprising a substantially ovalhollow head of flexible, readily yieldable material having an elongatednarrow mouth at one side and a throat extending outwardly from the otherside, a pair of spaced parallel fiat Webs, one on each side of saidthroat, extending across said head from said other side toward saidmouth, normal to the plane thereof but terminating short of the mouth insubstantially straight edges inwardly thereof, and an elongatedperforated distributor plate removably fitted in said mouth overlyingthe entire area thereof, said plate having an upstanding shoulderextending therearound inwardly from the edge thereof and a guide chutesloping upwardly from said shoulder at each end, making a small anglewith the plane of the plate, the inner ends of said chutes,respectively, substantially abutting said substantially straight edgesof said webs and serving to guide into said throat the air drawn in atthe ends of said mouth, and flanges extending outwardly from saidshoulder, said head having a groove extending around the inside of saidmouth, said flanges removably fitting in said groove.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS943,424 Lacock Dec. 14, 1909 1,145,047 Wiedemann July 6, 1915 1,296,121Rosenfield Mar. 4, 1919 2,210,030 Ellis Aug. 6, 1940 2,231,003 Fois Feb.11, 1941 2,280,751 Davis Apr. 21, 1942 2,283,428 Ellis May 19, 19422,333,409 Brown Nov. 2, 1943 2,492,627 Forsberg Dec. 27, 1949 2,570,347Humphrey Oct. 9, 1951 2,622,265 Allen Dec. 23, 1952 FOREIGN PATENTS22,700 France Aug. 4, 1921 499,375 Great Britain Jan. 20, 1939

